Message from the Chairman

Dear friends,

Welcome to the 45th season of Cliburn Concerts, our signature annual performance series! This 2022–2023 edition will feature performances at Bass Performance Hall, the Kimbell Art Museum, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, The Post at River East, and Tulips Fort Worth.

We are thrilled to welcome three of our first-prize Cliburn laureates back to Fort Worth this season: the Sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition champion, Yunchan Lim, kicks off this series in September; 2013 Gold Medalist Vadym Kholodenko returns in November; and our very first Junior Competition winner, from 2015, Alim Beisembayev, will join us in April. Each of these stellar artists are enjoying very successful worldwide careers, and we look forward to welcoming them home. Rounding out the season, as always, is a wonderful lineup of virtuosos in voice and on piano and strings, with some familiar faces and some new.

The Sixteenth Cliburn Competition this summer was one for the ages. The YouTube video of Yunchan’s Final Round Rach 3 has been viewed more than 7 million times. The Competition webcast videos have been seen 25 million times in 170 countries, and we’ve welcomed 80,000 new followers across all social media platforms. The level of talent, the production, and the results are all unprecedented in our history.

And, due to schedule changes brought on by the COVID pandemic, the 2022 Cliburn was just the beginning of a very busy 12 months of competitions. The Eighth Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition will be held October 12–18 at Van Cliburn Recital Hall and Bass Hall, and then the Third Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and Festival will again land at SMU and the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, June 8–17, 2023. Hang on!

It is the mission of the Cliburn to advance classical music throughout the world through its international piano competitions, concert series, and education programs. Cliburn in the Classroom is our proprietary music education offering, presented annually and free of charge to nearly 60,000 public elementary school students across North Texas. This year, we’ll present a full season of 300 programs for the first time since the pandemic began.

Thank you for your continued support of Van Cliburn’s vision and our mission. Please sit back, relax, and enjoy!